College Football Playoff rankings release: Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M lead initial Top 25

Ohio State, Indiana, Texas A&M and Alabama took the top four spots in the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season released Tuesday night.

The 12-member selection committee, armed with a new “record strength” metric intended to emphasize quality of competition, produced an initial top 25 that included Notre Dame at No. 10, eight spots ahead of Miami at No. 18, six SEC teams ranked 12th or better and two Big 12 teams in the top eight.

For the second straight year the top two teams in the season’s first CFP rankings are from the Big Ten. In 2024 it was Oregon and Ohio State at No. 1 and 2. The Ducks held on to their spot and went into the first 12-team CFP as the No. 1 seed before being beaten in the quarterfinals by the eventual national champion Buckeyes at the Rose Bowl.

Two more SEC teams follow in No. 5 Georgia and No. 6 Ole Miss, followed by Big 12 rivals BYU at No. 7 and Texas Tech at No. 8. No. 9 Oregon gives the Big Ten three teams in the top 10.

Selection committee chairman Mack Rhoades, who is Baylor’s athletic director, said on ESPN that the record strength metric played into Oregon’s ranking.

“When you look at (the Ducks) in the top 10, our lowest ranked in terms of record strength,” Rhoades said. “And so the committee had a lot of conversation, rigorous debate, conversation about Oregon as a team.”

The highest ranked ACC team is Virginia at No. 14, behind No. 11 Texas and No. 12 Oklahoma from the SEC and No. 13 Utah from the Big 12. The Longhorns and Sooners would be the first two teams out of the field if the bracket were built from these rankings.

Miami (6-2) beat Notre Dame at home on Labor Day weekend to start the season but has lost two of its last three.

“For Miami, it’s about consistency, and their lack of consistency,” Rhoades said in a teleconference with reporters.

Meanwhile, the Irish (6-2) haven’t lost since starting 0-2 against the Hurricanes and Texas A&M by a combined four points.

“The committee felt strongly that that is a team that when you look at Week 1 to now, a team that has improved, has gotten better, particularly when we think about defensively,” Rhoades said.

The committee’s highest-ranked team from outside the power conferences is Memphis from the American, but the Tigers did not make the top 25.

How the CFP’s new seeding system works

The CFP is still 12 teams, but the way the teams are seeded has been changed after last year’s format produced a bracket that had the ninth- (Boise State) and 12th-ranked (Arizona State) teams receive first-round byes by virtue of winning their conferences.

The five highest-ranked conference champions, regardless of league and ranking, are still guaranteed a spot in the field, but this year the seeds will simply match the rankings. Right now, that means two Big Ten teams and two SEC teams.

This season’s quarterfinals will be played Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 in the Cotton, Orange, Rose and Sugar bowls. The semifinals are scheduled for Jan. 8-9 in the Fiesta and Peach bowls. The national title game is set for Jan. 19 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla.

With five weeks of college football left before selection Sunday, let’s examine possible paths in which each conference might play out. This is not a comprehensive list of CFP scenarios for each conference — just an interesting one.

Big Ten

Oregon is the epicenter of an intriguing November in the Big Ten after what so far has been a humdrum first two months of the season around the league.

Scenario 1: Duck destroyer. Oregon rampages through its final four games (No. 20 Iowa, Minnesota, No. 19 USC and No. 23 Washington), dashing the CFP hopes of the Hawkeyes, Trojans and Huskies and all but assuring the Big Ten is a three-bid league.

Scenario 2: Duck hunting. Oregon gets picked off by at least two of Iowa, USC and Washington, playing its way out of the CFP and paving the way for at least one of those three to play their way in.

Scenario 3: Best for the Big Ten. The Ducks lose one of their big games, creating a path for a fourth team from the conference to make the 12-team field.

Scenario 4: Ohio State angst. No. 21 Michigan beats Ohio State for the fifth straight time, setting off yet another existential crisis in Columbus heading into the CFP. Michigan at 8-1 in conference play would not win a tiebreaker with an 8-1 Oregon to reach the Big Ten title game — which might be even better for the Wolverines, who could finish at 10-2, be in the running for an at-large bid and not have to worry about getting worked by IU in Indianapolis.

Big 12

Everything revolves around No. 7 BYU and No. 8 Texas Tech.

Scenario 1: Red Raiders roll. Texas Tech charges to a conference title while the rest of the Big 12 does the Big 12 thing of picking each other off. Again, the Big 12 is a one-bid league.

Scenario 2: Red Raiders and Cougars split. The top-10 matchup in Lubbock this weekend goes to the Cougars, but a rematch with the Red Raiders in the Big 12 title games goes to Texas Tech, leaving 12-1 BYU in the at-large pool. Or, Tech wins Saturday but then BYU wins out, including a title game rematch, and the Red Raiders are 11-2 and looking for an at-large bid. Either way, we’ll see whether the committee is as adamant this year about not punishing teams for losing in their conference title games.

ACC

Just to name a few …

Scenario 1: Ramble on. No. 17 Georgia Tech bounces back from its loss to NC State and runs the table. A victory over CFP-bound Georgia puts the Yellow Jackets in position for an at-large berth no matter what happens with the tiebreakers for spots in the ACC Championship Game.

Scenario 2: Hurricane warning. Everybody’s down on No. 18 Miami right now, but picture a world where the Canes lock in and finish at 10-2 with victories against 10-2 Notre Dame and American champion USF and a three-point loss to 12-1 ACC champion Louisville. Sounds like a pretty nice at-large resume.

Scenario 3: Pitt is it. The Panthers sweep through a gantlet of No. 10 Notre Dame, No. 17 Georgia Tech and No. 18 Miami, crushing CFP dreams along the way. That still might not be enough to get them into the ACC title game, but it would certainly make them an intriguing 10-2 at-large option, with eight straight wins since switching to freshman quarterback Mason Heintschel.

Scenario 4: Duke-Virginia squared. No one has the time to project out the myriad ACC tiebreakers with six teams currently bunched at the top of the standings with one conference loss or fewer. But these two teams’ Nov. 15 meeting is going to be a huge game, and if Duke wins it there is a very real chance the Cavaliers and Blue Devils could meet again in a loser-goes-home ACC title game.

SEC

The SEC-is-overrated crowd might be heading for a tough selection Sunday.

Scenario 1: Fantastic four. Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia and Ole Miss all win out in the regular season, eliminating Texas, No. 22 Missouri and Oklahoma along the way. Add in No. 16 Vanderbilt taking another loss, and that would leave the SEC with four teams with at least 11 victories and nobody else with a strong claim to make the field.

Scenario 2: Greg Sankey’s dream. There is a way to get to the end of the regular season with seven — SEVEN! — SEC teams at 10-2 or better. The most difficult part of that scenario is Texas sweeping Georgia and Texas A&M, but getting Vanderbilt and the winner of Missouri-Oklahoma to 10-2 would only require a couple of modest upsets.

Scenario 3: Horns up. The haters will say it’s not real, but at least a couple of SEC teams could finish 9-3 and make a case to be in the CFP, none more so than Texas, which could split with Georgia and Texas A&M and add that victory to wins against Oklahoma and Vanderbilt. Yes, Florida would be a bad loss, but as of now, nobody has played No. 1 Ohio State closer than Texas. This is already making fans angry.

Group of 5

This seems fairly straightforward nationwise.

Scenario 1: All-American. The American is stacked with contenders and a cache of victories against Power 4 opponents that should get its champion into the CFP at anything short of three losses.

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